Nick said:
I have been in the habit of running Ad-Aware from time to time. When
I ran it today, it invited me to install a free upgrade.
So you have malware that triggers when one of several security product
on which it detects is found installed. Off you went to who knows
where (because you certainly didn't say so here). Or you are ignorant
as to what program actually displayed that advertisement. Lavasoft does
not promote products from a competitor, like PC Tools.
You might want to get SysInternals' Process Explorer. You can use its
"scope target" toolbar icon to click on a window to find out just which
process opened that window. Click and drag the target icon to the
window and release. Process Explorer will highlight the process that
owns that window (although the black on gray highlighting is a bit dull
to see that PE selected that process). Winspector Spy is another useful
tool to find out how owns a window but is harder to use.
A few weeks ago my aunt installed a new version of Internet Explorer but
from some popup that appeared on her screen. She, of course, thought it
was IE saying there was an update of itself. Nope. Malware. Just
because she happened to be running IE at the time is why she thought
that, gee, it must've been a prompt from IE.
I have gotten untitled prompts (or the title didn't clearly identify
from which program it was opened). I don't just go clicking on a button
in a popup dialog because it might be from whatever program I happened
to see a UI for it on the screen or for programs that I know are running
in the background. If a program displays a popup alert window, it
should clearly identify itself in its titlebar. Because of these
unclearly identified popups, I had to use something to tell me who owned
that window. I then notified the developer to fix their product but in
the meantime I had something to tell me who opened that window.
This turned out to be a product called "Spyware Doctor". I installed
and ran SpyWare Doctor, and it warned me of dozens of serious threats
to my system;
And still you remain vague. Oh yeah, "threats", like that tells anyone
just WHAT type of threats were reported. Might they have been cookies
(which are just .txt files)? Any tool that reports cookies or doesn't
let you disable including them in their report is just salting the
results to make their product look like it is doing /something/.
and then said I would have to pay money to get them removed.
Yep. Read the notice (copied below) that is emblazoned right on the
product's own web page.
Right, so Spyware Doctor is a scam.
Wrong. See
http://www.pctools.com/. However, I personally don't care
for PC Tools' products.
At the very least, it is not "free" as it claimed; and no way am I
paying money to, and trusting, people who lie about their product.
Wrong again. WHO said it was free? You get a *trial* version of
Spyware Doctor (assuming you actually got it from PC Tools and not some
rogueware from another site, especially considering how you claim it
was presented to you as some offer from Lavasoft who is a competitor of
PC Tools). On the product's own web page at
http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/ it says:
"Trial Limitations: The trial offers time unlimited real-time
protection (free spyware blocking), but does not remove threats
detected during on-demand scans, updates may also differ to those
supplied to registered users."
Well, that means if you want their product to clean out the pests that
you have to PAY them for that commercialware feature. Same with all
those so-called "free" online malware scan sites. They install an
ActiveX control that runs as a local client on your host (which
interrogates the files) to download the signatures. You end up with an
AX control that you might not want around after the "free" scan. Their
free scan is just that: a scan. They don't fix anything. All you have
is their tiny AX client, not their full program. If you want to fix the
pests found by the scan-only client, you buy their product. This really
isn't anything new. Been going on for many YEARS.
I tried to find out more on the web. Of course there are sites
vouching for "Spyware Doctor", but then there would be.
You can download anything by any name from lots of sites. You really
think a *name* is going to ensure you got the real product?
What was more puzzling was sites stating that Ad-Aware and "Spyware
Doctor" are rival products. If this is true, why would Ad-Aware
encourage me to install it in place of their own free product?
Wrong again. They didn't. You have malware that popped up the message
and likely led you off to a rogueware site, or you have another PC Tools
product installed that popped up the ad, or you opened something
inadvertently, or who knows. It wasn't Lavasoft advertising a
competitor's product. Since you never identified the actual site from
where you got the download, no one here know what you really got.
